Push To Cut Speed Limits At Intersections To Just 30km/hr

Could it lower the crash rate?

A road safety group is recommending speed limits at intersections across the country be lowered to just 30km/hr, in a bid to reduce the number of serious traffic crashes.

Transport infrastructure group Austroads are behind the push after their research revealed a third of serious or fatal crashes are happening at intersections.

"While research has been able to quantify the magnitude of the intersection problem... there is little other practical guidance on how to modify intersection designs to minimise the occurrence of death or severe injury," Austroads said in a recent report.

The report has recommended nine solutions, including changes to roundabouts, raised or angled intersections and reduced speed limits.The RACQ's Steve Spalding said you definitely need to think about design and traffic flow before implementing blanket speed reduction.

"Obviously safety is at the top but you need to make sure the changes are efficient, don't affect the traffic flow and serve the needs of the local community, you can't take a 'one size fits all' approach to road safety," he said.

"I think in many cases, it [only changing the speed limit] would hinder traffic flow without necessarily making that valuable change to safety, so it's about making sure you match the road to the conditions and look at it on a road-by-road basis."